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Katusha rider Maxim Belkov took the honors after leaving behind his companions from an early breakaway in the latter stages of the 170km ride from Sansepolcro to Florence.

For 28-year-old Russian Belkov, who hails from Izhevsk—famous for the production of Kalashnikov rifles—it was the first major victory of his career, which began in 2009.

“With the rain I knew I could make the difference,” he said. “This is the first win of my career, I dedicate it to my team. At the start of the year we were having trouble obtaining our World Tour license but with each race we are proving that we deserve to be here.”

Belkov finished 44sec ahead of Carlos Betancur (Ag2r), who mistakenly raised his arms in victory as he crossed the line. The peloton containing all the overall favorites came over the finish 1:03 behind.

The real drama, however, was going on in the Russian's wake. Astana team leader Nibali retained the race leader's pink jersey and watched his main rival, Wiggins, struggle on the wet and slippery descent of the race's first category one climb, the Vallembrosa. The Briton was left trailing and had to be paced back to the main peloton during a frantic 20km pursuit by three of his Sky teammates.

In the end Wiggins lost no time to his key rivals but revealed another chink in his armor which, during his triumphant Tour de France campaign, was virtually impregnable. The day's biggest loser was Garmin team leader Hesjedal, who struggled late in the stage and, after losing over one minute to his rivals, dropped from sixth overall to 11th and now sits 3:11 behind Nibali.

Sunday's hilly course was staged on much of the route that will be used for the world road race championships in Tuscany later this year.